


Love and Addiction

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Drugs, M/M, Raver!Mike, Rock and Roll, Sex, but mostly just drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:17:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything has changed but it’s all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Addiction

"I wanted to open my mouth and catch stars like rain."

 

Rob stares blankly and mutters "That's because you’re an acid faggot, Mike."

 

This is the pair of them sitting on Mike’s hotel bed, surrounded by empty alcohol bottles from the mini-bar with Mike reminiscing about one trip or another. They aren’t drunk yet, but they’re getting there. It won’t take much more but they’re steadily running out of full bottles. Rob wants to get up, leave the room, leave Mike, get drunk alone, get high and a whole list of other things he won’t do. Instead he will sit with his gaze fixed on the man beside him in stony silence.

 

Mike bristles and mutters something that could be “it’s not like  _you_  were much better,” but Rob can’t be sure because Mike is hard enough to understand when he is sober, let alone when he has drunk his way through ten assorted bottles of spirits.

 

“What changed with you?” Rob asks.

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“I mean…” _give me back my stable best friend who I can depend upon and trust and turn to and don’t have to worry about finding him drowned in his own vomit after a heavy night or having to go to the morgue to identify his body that they found overdosed in an alley behind a club in Hollywood or down town LA or somewhere else this Go-Go boy impostor hangs out when he’s high on acid or coke or ecstasy that he bought from a dealer at the price of a blow-job and the promise of more business_  “you used to have it together now you…”

 

“I have it together, Rob.” Mike snaps and roots through the empty bottle for a full one.

 

“But the drugs…”

 

The emcee doesn’t reply, just raises his eyes to meet Rob’s and glares sternly letting the drummer know that this conversation is over.

 

***

 

They’re playing a show in the-middle-of-who-knows-where, New Mexico. Just arrived fresh from somewhere-with-cacti-and-road-kill, Arizona. More and more their venues all look the same, the fans in the front row could be the ones who were there last night or the night before and the beer Mike is getting drunk on after the show could be the same local brand he was drowning himself in yesterday.

 

Everything has changed but it’s all the same.

 

He hears Mike talking to one of the young catering staff saying “Know any good clubs?” then “Wanna take me?”

 

And the young boy stutters and blushes and Rob watches Mike grin because they all know that yes, he does want to take him to a club. The answer is always yes. You can’t say ‘no’ to Mike. Even before the drugs he was impossible to resist and Rob thinks he just could have loved him.

 

Could have. There’s nothing about Mike to love, anymore. You can’t love somebody who has no room in their heart for you unless you’re selling his wildest dreams come true. The kind of person Mike goes for nowadays looks dull in the daylight, but the minute they’re inside of a club the UV lights set the colours of their clothing on fire and they dance like no-one’s watching. They grab his collar in their plastic-ring decorated fist and pull him close, kissing him hard and passing the little pill from their tongue to his.

 

One thing that hasn’t changed after all these years is the urge Rob has to protect Mike from the world. Watching Mike get drunk night after night and take drugs and go dancing makes him think of the way he was when he was eighteen and the way everybody who tried to help him asked “Why?!”

 

And Rob would slur “It’s total escapism.”

 

And his friends would say “You need to get it together, man.”

 

But Rob already had it together – or so he thought – and wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t. Because there are some things you don’t let yourself hear.

 

It’s this train of thought that has him pushing the young caterer out of the way and turning to Mike saying “Let me take you.”

 

Mike lets the drummer lead him out to the street before he smirks “You’re jealous.”

 

“Of you?”

 

“Of that kid.”

 

“Believe it or not, Mike, not everything I do is because I want you all to myself.” Rob mutters, annoyed, wishing more than anything that they could go back to the Xero days. Before Chester. Before Mike thought he had to be a prick to even compete with the singer for the spotlight.

 

Mike just smirks and says nothing for a long minute, staring at Rob intensely and grinning when the drummer blushes and looks down at his feet. The silence is tense. Or maybe it’s Rob reading too far into things again. He shifts his weight and raises his eyes nervously to meet Mike’s whose expression is now one of thoughtfulness as he says “Lets go up to the roof.”

 

“The roof?”

 

Mike grins and laces his fingers with Rob’s, towing him towards the stairs. He doesn’t mention how scared he is or how he doesn’t think they should or how Mike’s hand is cold in his and tries not to let his reluctance show as they sneak up the arena-staff-only stairway to the roof top.

 

When they reach the top the emcee uses one hand to push the bar down on the fire door and drags Rob out into the night. He leads the younger man over to the railing running around the edge of the roof and looks down to the ground.

 

“It’s -” Rob’s voice catches and he clears his throat, “it’s a long way down.”

 

Mike turns to him and smiles “Don’t worry you won’t fall.” Rob waits for some soppy metaphor about catching him when he falls but all he gets is “The suicide nets will catch you.”

 

Rob leans out and looks down at the nets suspended mid-air. He imagines feeling low enough to end his life, jumping out and down and being caught in a net. He thinks maybe that’d be worse than hitting the ground – being trapped there, depressed and embarrassed.

 

He turns to Mike and watches him tilt his head back and look at the stars. He wants to say something about the drugs and the alcohol and how he hates the man Mike has become but the innocence painted on the emcee’s face stops him. He looks like a child, his dark eyes shining with wonder as he says “Isn’t it weird how the sky is the same no matter where we go in the world?”

 

Rob stands in silence just staring and thinking about how he’s never felt as close to the old Mike as he does now. The emcee turns his head and meets Rob’s eyes questioningly, waiting for an answer.

 

And Rob says, “Yeah. It’s pretty weird.”

 

His hand still tight in Mike’s, he tilts his head to look at the stars.


End file.
